Turning a Business Idea into a Reality

See if this sounds familiar: You get an idea, you don’t write it down, but tell a couple of friends and then after some time, another fancy idea replaces the old one. This is the relationship most have with ideas and needless to say, ideas are just ideas; most come and go like seasons. But, ideas don’t have to fade into oblivion. Next time you get an idea, here’s how to materialise it.

Settle on one business idea

If you keep mulling over multiple ideas, chances are that none will see the wake of the day. Every idea that finally translates into something meaningful, requires sufficient time and dedication. That is why you need to settle on just one good idea and kick off. Take the one idea that you’re most passionate about, one that you think fills a certain gap in the market.

Validate your idea

Your idea remains worthless if you don’t test it with potential customers. Build a prototype or a minimum viable product then share this with your friends, relatives and any other accessible persons who you consider to be your target market. Measure your subject’s response: Are they excited to use the product? Does your product solve an existing problem, what are their comments? These are some of the benefits of market validation:

Helps clarify your target market

Clarifies existing gap in the market

Reduces risks by eliminating unnecessary features

Helps build a customer base

Saves you money you’d have otherwise lost in trial and error

Create a financial model and plan the first phase

Now that you’ve done the market research, the next step is to figure out if your idea is financially viable. Financially viability means that the business will be profitable. Creating a bottom-up financial model that focuses on how your product is created, marketed and sold will give you an accurate figure on how much you need to start up.

It’s also at this point that you should research on how SMEs finance their businesses. You may not have enough capital but this should not be a hindrance since there are various financing options available on the market.

For most people, coming up with ideas is never the problem. Turning those ideas into profitable ventures is where the difficulty lies. In order to turn great ideas into the tangible, valuable reality, you can’t skip the above-mentioned steps.